The Fusion Job
by LithiumDoll
Summary: Hitter, hacker, grifter, thief and the ex-insurance agent who chased them - Arthur, Yusuf, Eames and Ariadne are the best in the business and now Cobb's had a slight change of career ...  /Leverage fusion/
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Nothing belongs to me  
**Beta:** Thank you Mitchy and Diya!  
**Notes:** WIP, not 100% if it's working or not so I'm posting to just kinda put it out there and see.

* * *

Cobb slouched at the bar, staring through the quarter inch of whiskey left in his glass to the scuffed veneer beneath. Someone took a seat at the stool next to him; he didn't bother to glance over, but when the bartender slid a bottle of beer across, Cobb clocked the expensive watch and gold cuffs attached to the hand that fielded it.

One more power suit, somewhere between here and there.

After a few seconds the man said, "Dominic Cobb, right?"

Cobb tensed and raised his head to look in the long mirror behind the rack of bottles and optics. The lounge area behind him was still empty; whoever it was didn't have back up - yet.

Still wary, he looked at the man who'd spoken. His fellow early morning drinker was in his early fifties and looked a little rumpled, but a long flight was a long flight, even in First Class. He dyed his hair subtly and wore a suit designed to flatter, but not disguise: the sum total was expensive – far too expensive for anyone who'd be looking for Cobb.

The guy did look weirdly familiar, though, and Cobb couldn't see any way that was good.

"No, sir. Wrong guy." He smiled perfunctorily and turned back to his drink.

The man smiled, so carefully friendly and non-threatening that Cobb was fairly sure he did it for a living. "Let me rephrase: You're Dominic Cobb and I have a proposition I'd like you to consider. My name is Browning. Peter Browning, of-"

Right. "Of Fischer Morrow. I know who you are, Mr. Browning. I read News Week." Cobb cast an eye over Browning and looked away again.

"Let me guess," Browning smirked. "You thought I'd be taller?"

Cobb shrugged. "I didn't think about you at all."

There were ways to talk to the most powerful men in the world and Cobb was aware this wasn't one of them, but he was floating on the soft cushion of his fourth shot of whisky and just couldn't seem to care. "What do you want, Mr. Browning?"

"To offer you a job," Browning replied simply and then smiled, a careful notch shy of a sympathetic grimace. "I know about … the unpleasantness, Mr. Cobb."

"If you know about the _unpleasantness_," Cobb's mouth twisted around the word, "then you know no one in their right mind would hire me."

"They would if they knew you were innocent," Browning said quietly. "If they could ensure your case were brought before a more open-minded board of enquiry."

Cobb's hand stilled on his glass; he frowned. "Get out of here."

Browning leaned forward intently. "Just hear me out."

"The answer's no." Cobb slipped off his stool and the world spun. He put a hand on the bar for support, reflexively raised the other to adjust his tie and then remembered he didn't wear a tie any more.

"I need your help, Mr. Cobb and you're the only one who can help. If clearing your name isn't enough, tell me what is." Browning waited a shrewd beat and then said, "Clearing your _wife's_name, perhaps?"

Cobb reached for his glass and then drew his hand back - the last thing he needed was a palm full of broken glass. Again.

There was nothing he wanted more than to walk away. Almost nothing.

Almost.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. "You have five minutes."

"Fair enough," Browning agreed. "Let me get you another drink."

When the bartender had withdrawn, Browning leaned forward again and spoke quietly. "Corporate espionage."

Cobb frowned, puzzled. "You have your own investigators; they're good, Fischer Morrow only poaches the best."

"We know who did it – we knew who did it within hours - that's not the issue. We need the data back, and we need it done discreetly, but _decisively_. We must be seen as secure, but at the same time those responsible must be educated. Made an object lesson."

Cobb brought his glass to his lips and then shook his head. "So hire a few 'security consultants', fight fire with fire."

"I have fire." Browning turned to dig into his briefcase and then pushed a handful of files across the bar between them. "I've approached a number of outside specialists."

Cobb fanned the files and then looked up; arrested by the first name he caught. "Ariadne? You got Ariadne?"

Browning nodded and looked pleased, then slightly guarded. "Why, is there someone better?"

"No." Cobb smiled slightly and spoke with absolute honesty. "There's no one better. But she was out." He felt a brief pang. "What did you offer her?"

"Early release." Browning smiled thinly. "Perhaps she wasn't as out as you thought she was."

Yusuf. Eames. _Arthur_. Cobb shook his head; the crew Browning had put together could take down minor governments. At least one of them had, allegedly. "You have the best money can buy, what do you need me for?"

"Ariadne refused to do the job without you," Browning said, then realising he may have been overly honest, added, "but once I'd reviewed your career, I agreed. You've chased all of them at one point or another; you know how they work."

Cobb was two drinks beyond a critical examination of Browning's explanation; he let it go. It didn't matter anyway, only one thing did: "Tell me how you'd clear Mal's name."

Browning's expression hardened, all business. "The full weight of Fischer Morrow's resources will be brought to bear against ITA," he said crisply. "Your name – your wife's name – will be restored and I'd imagine a not inconsiderable sum would be due you in compensation. More than enough to pay college tuition."

Cobb stared down at the files again. On the topmost, Ariadne's passport photo smiled artlessly up at him; tucked behind her Eames smirked at the camera, behind him Yusuf looked almost shy in a mug shot. At the bottom, Arthur was as well presented as ever, but he seemed to be faintly annoyed. There was a sense of motion; Cobb suspected that whomever had taken the photo had been running not long afterwards.

"I believe it's been five minutes, Mr. Cobb," Browning prodded gently.

Cobb pushed the folders back and stood again, steady this time. "I'm in."

-o-

The warehouse that Browning had provided for their use was anonymously positioned in a cluster of mostly abandoned machine shops on the edge of Newark Bay. There was enough traffic that theirs wouldn't be noteworthy, but not so much that privacy would become an issue – or surveillance would be difficult to spot.

Cobb wondered vaguely how many times Browning had arranged something like this, then dismissed the question as irrelevant.

He let himself into the warehouse and drew the rusting corrugated door shut behind him. There were voices as he crossed the empty expanse of shop floor, but silence fell as he neared the office partition.

He stopped at the door and cleared his throat before raising his hand to knock. None of his new colleagues were known for their twitchy trigger fingers, but there was such a thing as heightened circumstances.

The door swung inwards before his knuckles could connect and Ariadne stood in the doorway. She was smiling warmly, but there was an anxious tightness around her eyes. "Dom."

"Hey, Ariadne." He smiled and her smile grew and the tension eased away; for them both, he realised. She hesitated and then stepped in for a light hug; he returned it just as she started to step away. Their timing never had been good.

Behind her, he could see Arthur, Eames and Yusuf had arranged themselves around the small office. It was strange, just for a moment, how much and how little had changed.

Ariadne was as he remembered; she still looked like a fresh-faced college student, maybe one who'd taken a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong neighbourhood: definitely not a criminal and certainly not one of the most successful thieves in the country.

Yusuf was poking at the coffee machine with a frown of concentration and a screwdriver, but he spared Cobb a quick nod of greeting. The last time Cobb had seen him had been three – no, four years ago. The man had put on a little weight and a goatee had appeared, most notably the jeans and violently coloured t-shirts had been replaced with a vintage corduroy look.

Lounging back in one of the plastic chairs with his feet propped up on the table, Eames was unshaved and red-eyed, his linen suit was crumpled and stained. He was clutching a mug as if his life depended on it.

It was an uninspiring sight, unless you were aware that, with a slight adjustment of expression and posture, Eames could present a very different front.

_Any_ different front.

As if he'd followed Cobb's thoughts – and there was a pretty good chance he had – Eames shifted position and raised an eyebrow. Dissolute became relaxed, crumpled became casual.

Arthur was stood by the whiteboard, Cobb saw him roll his eyes. The man was as impeccably dressed as ever, though he'd removed his jacket and carefully hung it over the back of his chair as a concession to the heat. Arthur hadn't changed at all, not really, but the last time they'd met there'd been gunfire and now the man was handing him a mug of coffee.

Cobb took the mug with a nod of thanks and ignored the slight disorientation. "You've all met each other?" He stepped forward and put his briefcase on the table.

Eames grinned and raised his hands expansively. "We're practically family already. The suspicious looks, the silent recriminations, the venomous accusations over who made off with Great Aunt Vera's silverware after the funeral."

"Not me," said Ariadne with a crooked smile.

"The only thing missing is someone three pints in reminiscing about the time they streaked the footie," Eames finished.

"Okay," Cobb said with a faint smile, completely ignoring him. "Hitter meet hacker, hacker meet grifter, grifter meet thief." He pointed to each of them in turn and then strode toward the white board. "None of you have worked together before, but I've chased all of you, so I know your strengths and weaknesses - consider me the glue."

"Hitter, hacker, grifter, thief, _glue_?" Eames said after a moment. "No, sorry, that really doesn't work for me."

Cobb rubbed his eyes as Yusuf made a sound of agreement. "Mastermind? No, too super-villain. I realise we are technically villains, but that seems excessive."

"Oh! The Brain! He could have a cape." Ariadne's eyes shone and Cobb felt the corner of his mouth twitch into a smile despite himself.

"Architect," Arthur said with a touch of acid. "Can we move on?"

"Thank you," Cobb muttered. Some papers had already been stuck to the whiteboard; he added some more.

"We have, you know," Ariadne said, after everyone had found a chair. "Worked together before. Some of us, anyway."

Cobb paused mid-pinning and looked back over his shoulder, strangely intrigued. "Who's worked with who?"

"I worked with Eames." Ariadne smiled over at the man.

"And it was a pleasure," said Eames with a nod. "I've worked with Yusuf too," he added. "I get around. Never worked with Arthur, though." He shot a look to the other man. "My loss, I'm sure."

"You've gotten in my way before," Arthur said, but without any particular trace of annoyance. "Eversley."

Eames' smile widened into a delighted grin. "That was you? Oh, lovely."

"For you, maybe." Arthur frowned and Eames' grin died.

"Is this going to be an issue?" Cobb looked between the two men warily; both shot him almost identically affronted looks.

"Not when we're on the job," Arthur said shortly.

Eames nodded his agreement. "We're professionals, remember?"

Cobb stared at them both for a moment longer and then turned back to the board. "Fischer Morrow. They made their billions in weapons tech, but they've got fingers in infrastructure too – and lately they've been moving into domestic utilities. They're working on a clean energy technology and that's what they suspect a company called Vaultech of stealing."

"Only suspect?" Ariadne was leaning forward, elbow on the table and chin propped on the palm of her hand.

"Vaultech left some pretty big footprints in the system," Arthur said, and made a note on his pad. Cobb wasn't sure why – he had no doubt Arthur already knew as much, maybe more than Cobb himself did.

He supposed it was possible his notes were a grocery list, or the top ten ways to kill Eames with a paperclip.

"They did leave footprints," Yusuf agreed, but with more than a hint of reservation.

"But?" Cobb nudged.

Yusuf leaned comfortably back in his chair and crossed his arms with a smile. "Very big foot prints. Vaultech is far better than that."

Cobb paused and then lowered his hand from the board. "You've been in their systems." He didn't make it a question – of course Yusuf had been in their systems. Possibly even legally; hackers of Yusuf's ability tended to be in demand, regardless of their rap sheet.

"Oh yes," Yusuf said cheerfully. "Both systems, many times. I can promise you, if Vaultech had actually infiltrated Fischer Morrow's network in the manner Browning suggested, the evidence would have been significantly harder to find."

There was contemplative silence for a long moment and then Arthur spoke slowly, as if feeling out an idea. "You could have mentioned that earlier?"

"Why?" Yusuf looked genuinely confused. "Nothing changes, except perhaps things are more interesting now."

"He has a point," Eames said after another beat. "I mean, we don't care if Vaultech's innocent, do we? We get paid anyway." He glanced at Cobb and then studiously down at his nails.

"We care," Cobb answered levelly. "I'm not a thief."

"Right," Ariadne agreed, and went on in a clear, loud voice. "We care. Because we're law-abiding citizens with only the best interests of our great nation at heart."

"I already checked for listening devices," Yusuf assured Ariadne in a low murmur. "It's clean."

She brightened again. "Oh, in that case-"

"We _still_ care," Cobb said flatly.

"And your great nation is not my great nation," Eames pointed out. "Although I do concede your pancakes are better. Tea's vile though, I completely understand why you lot rioted."

Arthur stared at him, apparently at a loss for words or possibly just unable to decide which ones he should start with.

Eames grinned. "Put the colonial outrage away, darling. I took history, I promise."

Arthur's expression did something complicated and slightly appalled as he tried not to smile and failed. He ripped a page out of his notepad, crumpled it into a ball and threw it at the trashcan across the room. "Moving on. How does caring change things?"

"You weren't even looking," Eames said. "Jammy git."

Once, many years ago, Cobb had considered following his mentor and father-in-law into teaching. He'd decided against it and never regretted the decision less than now. "Focus, Eames. Maybe a third party's trying to set them both up, maybe Fischer Morrow's setting Vaultech up. We still investigate all avenues, nothing's changed."

"This is exciting." Yusuf grinned. "Maybe Vaultech's setting themselves up!"

"Sure," Cobb glanced at him and tried to look encouraging. "Maybe that too. When we know what the score is, we take it to the highest bidder."

"The highest bidder or most connected?" Arthur asked bluntly.

Cobb looked at Arthur silently, until the other man nodded a fraction, and then he turned back to the board. He raised the marker and drew a third box, beside Fischer Morrow's and Vaultech's, and added a question mark to its centre

When he was done, he turned back. "Game plan: Yusuf – find out who or what left those footprints."

Yusuf drew his laptop closer and patted the case affectionately. "It will be our pleasure."

Cobb moved on. "Ariadne, we may need to get inside either of those buildings – get me blue prints, access points, fastest exits, security and so on. Ask Yusuf for help if it will be quicker than breaking in or diving off a building."

Ariadne's face fell.

Eames patted her shoulder sympathetically and then waved a hand between himself and Arthur. "And us, fearless leader?"

"Eames, get yourself hired on at both companies. Something faceless, but-"

Eames sniffed and held a hand up for silence. "Please don't go on, it insults us both."

Cobb laughed shortly under his breath. "Fine, you know what you're doing." He turned back to Arthur, who looked back with a pleasantly blank. Cobb shrugged. "You're the retrieval specialist, you tell me."

There was a flicker of surprise and then Arthur nodded. "If Vaultech doesn't have the information, someone else may – if we can find buyers, we have a better chance of finding the source."

"Good. We'll meet back here Monday, we should probably get some burner phones."

Yusuf shook his head vehemently. "No. Do you have any idea how insecure those are? Certainly not. Here."

He dug into his laptop case and extracted a soft cloth pouch, which he emptied into his palm.

Cobb picked up the ear bud offered to him carefully, if dubiously. "What's the range on these?"

"I don't recommend space travel. Not without some warning, anyway – I'd need a few minutes to re-task a satellite. Then you could go. If you wanted."

Yusuf looked around the ring of faces staring at him. "What?"

-o-

Ariadne was waiting outside the warehouse when Cobb finally tore himself away from the whiteboard long after the others had left. Hands jammed deep in the pockets of her felt coat and hair tucked haphazardly under her beret, she looked even more like the student she'd been when they'd met.

The student she'd been pretending to be when they'd met.

She hooked her arm through his, but didn't press close. "It's been a while."

"Three years," Cobb said, then, "You were out, what happened?"

"You know what it's like." Ariadne paused and then smiled wryly. "No, of course you don't. I love what I do, that's hard to let go. I lasted a year, but I fell back in."

"You could have called me."

"And said what? Would you have baked a lock pick into a cake?" She shook her head. "No. Mal had just … and you'd left the country. You didn't need my drama."

"I'm sorry," he said, because he was.

"I was breaking the law, Dom," she pointed out. "You don't have to be sorry – you put me in jail once too, remember?"

"Yeah, well." The silence was just shy of uncomfortable between them; he changed the subject. "So you've worked with Eames before?"

Ariadne's smile turned blinding. "On my last job, actually. The cops missed him, though. Jammy bastard," she said, mangling Eames' accent with almost bloodthirsty enthusiasm.

Cobb frowned. "He didn't-"

"Oh, no." She shook her head quickly. "It wasn't his fault. He tipped me off, actually. I was on my way out to New York when they picked me up. Should have taken the bus."

Cobb made a non-committal sound; Ariadne, despite her undisputed genius in her chosen career, remained almost wilfully naïve in some ways. And Eames - Cobb liked Eames, he genuinely did, but that didn't stop him from recognising that the man lied for a living and had the loyalty of a weasel.

"Do you really think Fischer Morrow can clear your name? And Mal's?" Her tone was subdued.

"I don't know." He honestly didn't, the hell of it was he had to try anyway. For Mal, yes, but mostly for Philippa and James and the life they were living without either of their parents.

"We'll do our best, you know." Ariadne glanced up at him. "We really will. And if Browning doesn't keep his side of the deal, we'll do something … dramatic."

"I know _you_ will," he said, and wasn't surprised when she poked him in the ribs.

"We'll _all_ do our best. It's good money, but Eames and Arthur weren't going to come in until they heard you were involved. Yusuf was already in," she admitted, "but only because Browning's people bribed him with encryption algorithms."

"Why?" Cobb stopped next to his car and paused, key half way to the lock. "Why are you doing this?"

Ariadne turned to face him; her fingers gently squeezed his, then she let go and stepped back with an impish smile and no answer at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Nothing belongs to me  
**Beta:** Thank you Mitchy and BrownBetty for the beta  
**Notes:** Thank you so much for the encouraging comments! I'm glad to know it's working.

+Hefeweizen, StrangeLittleSwirl & anon: Thank you, I'm glad you're finding the fic enjoyable!  
+SmileThough: Ariadne is a thief :)  
+ESP: I'm pretty sure if I could introduce a concept as fascinating as the DreamScape, I would actually be Chris Nolan, but failing that I hope you enjoy the rest of the fic anyway - that's pretty much its only point *g*  
+inconstant heart: You're absolutely right - it's Inception characters from the movie in a Leverage-ey verse, you don't really need to know anything about Leverage. And thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the other fic too :)  
+Titan of Saturn: I hope you enjoy this one too!

* * *

A week later, Cobb sipped his coffee, triple-checked the time on the plastic, nicotine-stained clock on the wall and said, "Eames?"

Still nothing.

He gritted his teeth and told himself that he was irritated, not concerned. He waited a few seconds and tried again. "_Eames_, answer me - where the hell are you?"

There was a burst of static; Eames' voice came through on the tail of it. "- Here, I'm here."

"You realise that the buds only work if you actually wear them?" Yusuf said, tapping at his keyboard. "Do you need me to explain their use again? Step one: place earbud in ear. Step two: stop poking it."

Over Yusuf's shoulder, Cobb watched as lines of numbers began to scroll hypnotically back and forth across the laptop's screen. He blinked rapidly and looked away. "Or at least remember your check-in time," he added, catching up.

"Forgive me and my unreasonable desire for a few seconds of privacy," Eames muttered. "Don't think I don't know you're recording everything, Yusuf."

"I have no interest in recording your conversations," Yusuf denied quickly, if not particularly convincingly. "Although Jasmine from Accounts is right – Elliott Yamin was robbed."

Eames made a small, pained sound. "So I'm led to believe. And something about Michael C. being the Devil. I'm not this person, Cobb."

"You're anyone you want to be, Eames, " Cobb pointed out mildly. "That's why you're the best. That's what the notes you left your marks said, anyway."

"Allegedly. Look, I don't do water cooler chitchat and whoever invented filing was a raving sadist. I have paper cuts in places you don't want to know about. And these ridiculous _costumes_!"

"They're called suits," Arthur cut in helpfully. He sounded oddly winded and his background score was a screeching of car tires and loud, scattered cracks.

Cobb looked askance at Yusuf, who widened his eyes and tapped his keyboard again. The scrolling numbers were replaced with a primary colored city map; five green lights pulsed serenely across it. Yusuf pointed at one of them and murmured, "He's near the Bay."

"No, what _you_ wear are suits," Eames groused, still caught in his nine-to-five horror story. "I'm not sure there's a word for what I'm wearing."

"That's not actually new, Eames," Arthur murmured – whispered, really. "You should have stayed in the army, at least they have some dress sense."

Eames snorted. "Clearly you've never seen-"

Cobb cut across quickly. "Arthur, what are you doing?"

"Waiting," Arthur breathed, almost sub-vocally.

Cobb looked at Yusuf, who shrugged and shook his head.

Apparently the little green lights were only helpful to a point.

"For what?" Cobb asked uneasily, and felt himself pre-emptively wincing. There was a fast series of sounds; he replayed them in his head until several thuds, a short, sharp cry and a loud crack made sense.

"For that," Arthur said at normal volume a few seconds later. There was an extended sound of exertion, punctuated by a loud splash. "Someone didn't like my questions."

"Maybe if you hadn't just thrown the guy in the Bay, you could have asked him who," Ariadne pointed out. She sounded a little tinny. Cobb wasn't precisely sure where she was, other than _somewhere_ in the business district, but he thought he could hear the sound of rushing wind.

"We'd moved beyond talking," Arthur said, "but I'll tell you this for free: if it's Vaultech, they're outsourcing their muscle. These guys were probably South African."

"What do you mean, 'probably?'" said Cobb.

"Wait, '_guys?'_" said Ariadne.

"Did you say South African?" said Eames.

"_Were_?" said Yusuf.

-o-

Three hours later, Eames entered the warehouse with a box of Thai take out and a faintly smug smile that Cobb couldn't quite parse. Keeping up a running litany of ingredients, Eames began distributing the cartons; Cobb tuned out after 'tentacles'.

Arthur appeared a few minutes later with a blood-pocked rucksack and a carefully neutral expression. He was missing his vest and tie and his hair was damp, wavy without the pomade; there was a smear of dirt on his neck he'd missed during cleanup.

Cobb tried not to stare. Ariadne wasn't quite so polite, she grinned widely. "You're not wearing a tie. You _hippie_."

Arthur's smile was fleeting, but amused. "Save the whales, man."

Yusuf shivered. "That's just wrong."

"And so is this." Arthur upended his bag over the middle of the table.

Ariadne jerked back as a grenade spun her way. When it failed to explode, she pushed it gingerly back to the pile. "_Warning _next time." Her hand hesitated over some loose ammo; she picked up one of the bullets and rolled it between her fingers. "Is this a hollow point?"

Arthur glanced over and then nodded. "Rangers - T series."

Ariadne made a disgusted sound, dropped the bullet back with the others, and then rescued her carton of soup from the bottom of the box.

"Black Talon?" Eames whistled softly. "Nasty little buggers, I thought they were illegal. If they aren't, they should be." He was still wearing his cheap suit, but the jacket had been thrown unceremoniously on the floor and the tie was pulled loose from its knot; he undid another button at his collar.

Somewhat comfortable again, Eames reached across and picked up a wickedly sharp-looking survival knife. He held the handle delicately between two fingers and looked thoughtful. "Exactly what questions have you been _asking _these people, Arthur?"

Arthur dropped into his chair and picked up his chopsticks. "This wasn't what I'd call a proportional response, if that's what you mean."

"Fischer Morrow has significant South African holdings," Yusuf volunteered. "Of course, they have significant holdings almost everywhere."

"So does Vaultech, that doesn't really tell us anything." Ariadne looked over at Arthur. "Why did you say _probably_ South African?"

"They were speaking Afrikaans, but I don't know if their accents were genuine." He dug through his Pad Thai. "I've played 'vaguely European' once too often to assume anything."

Cobb wondered if that might be overly paranoid, but guessed not when the other three nodded with complete understanding. He knew their world well enough to do the job and do the job well, but he wasn't a part of it. And didn't want to be, he reminded himself.

Dinner still untouched at his elbow, he laced his fingers to a steeple and stared over them to the pile of ordnance. Grenades, blocks of Semtex with detonators already embedded, DetCord and a few piece of electronic equipment he couldn't identify. "Don't take this the wrong way, Arthur," he said at last, "but I don't think this was for you."

Arthur methodically finished chewing his mouthful, swallowed and then nodded. "Agreed."

"So, what?" Eames looked around the table. "They were off to conquer a small nation and thought they'd stop for a quick spot of assassination en-route?"

Yusuf ran a clinical eye over the pile and then pecked one-fingered at his keyboard. "There was nothing else?"

Arthur shook his head. "No ID, no cell phones. Nothing. They were military trained, though."

Eames smirked. "But not particularly well, apparently."

"I had no complaints," Arthur said dryly. "Thanks."

Eames waved a hand. "I _mean_, both companies can afford better than Recce wash outs. Fischer Morrow could afford _me_. And you, I suppose," he added as an afterthought.

"A second-tier operation with ambition, running out of South Africa." Arthur glanced at Yusuf, who nodded.

"Cobol," the hacker said darkly.

Eames looked between them. "Never heard of them."

Ariadne spoke around a mouthful of dumpling. "Me either."

"I have," Cobb said. "Next-gen weapons tech, dirty as hell, but they're not really international players – not yet."

"But they try much, much harder," Yusuf said quietly, expression still shadowed.

It didn't look like he was going to be more forthcoming and Cobb wasn't inclined to push him. "Get me a brief on them," he said instead. "Look into their accounts."

When Yusuf nodded, Cobb moved on. "Arthur, were they definitely trying to kill you? The attack couldn't have been about warning you off, or making sure you heard them speak?"

Arthur opened his mouth and then shut it again. After a moment, he managed to edit his reply down to a raised eyebrow and nod.

"They'd have no way to know about the ear bud, so they didn't know anyone was listening in - the accents weren't for anyone's benefit, it probably wasn't a set up." Cobb swung around. "Eames, what have you got?"

Eames hesitated very briefly and then began to give a succinct report, without any of his usual flair. "Fischer Morrow recently lost quite a large account with a South African company, which is interesting, given the givens. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the specifics – the lovely Jasmine cornered me before I could investigate, but it seems a tad coincidental.

"Something's up with upper management and wild rumours abound – middle management is very nervous and it's filtering down the chain. I haven't heard anything solid, but apparently the old man's taken ill. Robert Fischer's name has certainly been appearing on a lot of internal memos.

"I need a couple more days to work myself into a position to find out more, unless Yusuf's toys can help me take a few short cuts.

"As for Vaultech." Eames grimaced a little and shook his head. "Not a great deal there, to be honest - no one's wandering around laughing maniacally. But here's an interesting little titbit that our Ariadne may be interested in." He leaned toward her and lowered his voice temptingly. "Seven floors, third floor – sorry, American, _fourth_ floor – there's a room in the very center of the building. No windows, one very, _very_ locked door."

Ariadne leaned down to the bag at her feet and withdrew an architect tube; Cobb tried not to notice the security stamps emblazoned across it. She emptied the rolled up blueprints onto the table before her and then swept empty cartons away as she spread it out; she borrowed Cobb's coffee mug to hold the far corner.

One finger traced across the plans, then she looked at him. "According to this it's just a storage area."

Eames nodded and grinned. "So I was told, but biometric security seems a bit excessive for a few biros."

She pursed her lips and then frowned pensively; she reached into her bag again and this time came back with a highlighter pen. "Okay, this is pretty weird. There are cameras here, here and here." The marker moved deftly to cross the spots in neon pink. "But there's a blind spot," she tapped the paper. "The door into your mystery room.

"I looked at the first couple of floors earlier, there's no blind spots anywhere else - this was deliberate."

Yusuf peered over her shoulder and then sat back. "I can't explain the security issues, but is there any kind of noise - a hum, perhaps? Or vibrations?"

Eames thought about it and then nodded. "There's an electric sort of hum sometimes."

"Some companies keep their high security servers in small, climate controlled rooms much like this. And the plans do show an unusually large network of power cables." Yusuf perked up at the prospect of interesting new technology he hadn't hacked. "Does anyone ever go in or out?"

"Not that I've seen, but I'm not really in a position to say – you stand around waving a duster too long and people start to notice. Besides, no one else tends to be there at night."

Ariadne gave a startled laugh. "You're a _janitor_?"

"I have access, I'm invisible and I can carry around practically anything without being asked awkward questions." Eames nodded. "Yes, absolutely - best job in the world.

"And as an added bonus, I don't have to file anything. We prefer 'Custodial Services', though." He looked at his watch. "My shift starts in an hour – do you want to tag along, take a look at the mystery room?"

Ariadne wavered. "Depends - do you have a floor waxer?"

"I do."

"I'm so there." She stood and reached for her bag.

Cobb resisted his first instinct: to insist they looked a little more before they leapt. Ariadne and Eames were going to leap whatever his objections and they both knew what they were doing; he skipped to damage control. "Arthur, go with them. Yusuf, get into the building security – I want to be in control of whatever you can get. Lights too."

Ariadne looked amused. "You don't trust us?"

"_Someone_ _tried to have_ _Arthur killed_," Cobb pointed out, not sure which word to emphasise and stressing them all to be sure.

Ariadne looked mystified, Eames nodded sadly. "A lot of people do – no learning curve whatsoever, bit tragic really."

Cobb stared at them. They stared back. In the midst of mutual incomprehension, Arthur finished his Pad Thai and reached for his jacket.

"Okay," Cobb said finally. "We don't know how much they know, so we're playing safe. Humour me."

"Fine." Eames held up his hands. "I take it you and Yusuf will be on nanny-cam?"

Cobb waved them towards the door. "Go to work."

-o-

Eames hummed under his breath as he walked the low-lit corridor, pushing the cleaning cart before him. He gave a pleasant smile to the patrolling floor security guard, the guard nodded back. He was new; Eames made a mental note to have a look through the man's file on the way out.

At the bank of elevators, Eames pushed the cart inside the first that opened and stepped in after it. Carelessly, he allowed the mop head to fall in front of the tiny camera in the panel of buttons.

When the elevator began to move he said, "All right, you're clear."

Arthur awkwardly rolled out of the bottom of the cart and stood with a grimace. He rotated his shoulders and cracked his neck. "Next time, I get the roof."

Not quite able to help himself, Eames reached out and straightened the crooked collar. "You'll be lucky." He stepped back, linked his hands together and braced. "Up you go, then."

Arthur stepped up and quickly opened the access panel above. A moment later, Ariadne dropped down and landed neatly between them. She wore black Lycra pants and a hoodie, with soft-sole sneakers to finish. Firmly strapped to her back was a small, but full-looking pack. It was considerably more minimal than most of the other thieves Eames had worked with; he'd mentioned that once when they'd first worked together and never again.

He grinned. "A two from the tricky Romanian judge. Are we clear, Cobb?"

"Yusuf's looped the cameras in this elevator and on the main section of the fourth floor," Cobb relayed. "He hasn't cleared the offices yet, and there's still the patrol. Avoid them if you can, but we can squelch their radios if we have to."

A few seconds after they emerged from the elevator, Ariadne stopped and looked down with a small frown. "Wait," she instructed, then crouched and laid her palm flat on the floor. Her lips moved as she counted and then she looked up. "There's a pulse every three seconds."

Eames laid his hand against the wall. "Nothing here."

"It's unlikely to be a generator," Yusuf said over comms. "And I don't know any sensors with that kind of signature – it would be counter-intuitive at best. I'm running another system profile."

The main expanse of the floor was mostly open plan, with a row of glass-walled offices at the far end. Desks were arranged in groups of four, with just enough by way of personal touches not to be entirely sterile. Eames absently righted a picture frame as he passed a desk almost overflowing with manila folders.

In the very center of the room, just as Eames had described, was the mystery room. It was about ten feet across and if it hadn't been for the plastic, plain white door on its far side, it could have been a purely structural feature – maybe even decorative.

Ariadne moved closer to study the door intently. There was no handle or lock and its edges disappeared into the frame seamlessly – an airtight seal. She touched it with one gloved hand and then pulled back sharply, as if burned. "It's vibrating. It's _warm_."

Eames frowned. "It wasn't yesterday, that humming noise has gone too."

Ariadne made a vague sound, now entirely absorbed with the fingerprint and retina scanners on the wall next to the door.

Arthur touched Eames' shoulder to get his attention and then spoke quietly. "I'm going to take a look around."

Eames nodded slowly – something was definitely off. "Be back soon, you know how Cobb frets."

"Cobb _can_ hear you," Cobb reminded them. "Arthur, can you try and find the guards? They should be patrolling, but Yusuf can't pick them up on the monitors. Their radios are still at their desks, they aren't."

"Maybe it's an elevator," Ariadne said. "Or a really, really big vacuum tube."

Eames turned back to her. "If it is, it only goes up. The floors below are entirely open plan and whatever's above us doesn't need mopping – I haven't managed to work my way up there yet."

"I'm disappointed, Mr. Eames," Arthur said as he slipped back out into the corridor.

Eames laughed under his breath. "You and my sainted mother. So what's the professional opinion, Ariadne?"

Ariadne held a small flash light over the print scanner and moved her head slowly from side to side. She clicked the light off and stepped back decisively. "It's a dummy. There's no oil on the print scanner, there should be _some_ smudging. And there's a scratch on the retina scanner – It's useless. Take a look."

He looked as directed and finally, squinting like he was trying to see a magic picture, just about made the fissure out. He moved back again. "Someone stuck a generator in a box and thought a fake door would make a nice decorative touch?"

Ariadne shook her head. "Not exactly: the door isn't fake, but it's not opened by the scanners. I'm guessing they're secondary security – attempting to use them at all probably sets off an alarm."

She pressed her hand to the white door again. "Maybe it reads biorhythms. I've never seen anything like it."

"You can't get in?" Cobb asked.

She blinked, a tiny crease of a frown between her eyebrows. "Of course I can get in, it just won't be elegant. If you can't go through a door one way or another, you go through the wall, floor or ceiling."

"We'll call that plan B," Cobb said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

"We have a problem," Arthur said, with no smile in his voice at all.

"Oh good." Eames reached into his cart and pulled a semi-automatic out from under a pile of black liners. "I was starting to worry nothing would go wrong."

"What's happening?" Cobb asked, back on alert.

Arthur crouched behind the security desk and pressed two fingers against a guard's neck. "I found the guards, they're both dead."

Eames swore under his breath.

"That's not the problem," Arthur went on flatly. "The problem is, they're still warm."


End file.
